What's The Deal With Balance?

[wedgeski]

I know balance isn't important, because I do without it just fine--the important thing is a group of players who see eye to eye on just what sort of game they want to be playing. Actually, I've found that the attempt to "balance" a system is what most encourages players to exploit imbalances, but that's a whole nother conversation.

And so it is for many DM's, I'm sure, but this is a contract between you and your players, not between you and the system. The system - the Core Rules, the Rules as Written, whatever you want to call it - must be balanced for it to be the basis of a game which wants to have broad appeal, variety, and longevity. What individual DM's and their groups do with the rules after that doesn't really matter (unless they then PDF their rules and try to sell 'em).

 

[shilsen]

Interesting topic. On a related note, I would be curious to see how various DMs go about balancing a campaign. Are you willing to actively boost a character if it is below par, help a player who has designed a poor character (and may be compounding that with poor play)?

Yes. One of my two groups consists of people who are either complete newbies to gaming in general or are new to 3e. So the power levels of the various PCs originally diverge(d) a fair bit and I've spent some time with all of them talking about ways to boost their characters' effectiveness so that they're on par with each other.

In other words, are you willing to actively work towards balance between different PCs? Or do you prefer a formal approach? Everyone plays by thesame rules and the rules themselves are balanced? What the players make of it then is their responsibility?

Both. I like to work under a set of rules that are balanced, but since different players have different levels of skill at character creation/development, I am happy to help those who are feeling frustrated at their characters' lack of effectiveness.

Are there classes that you feel are out of balance?

Among the core classes, I don't think any are horribly out of whack as written, but some are definitely stronger than others. I use a few house rules to bring them more on par with each other.

And how much are you willing to use storyline to help a character? If a campaign is set in a dungeon, do you work to give the Druid a chance? If the campaign is fast pace, what about Wizards who need to study? Etc.

Definitely. I won't throw in something completely random just to give a specific character something to do, but I am just as unlikely to have a session where any PC feels completely useless. Some situations will naturally cater more towards certain characters, but never so much as to make others irrelevant.

It is one thing to say that balance is important, and quite another to achieve it. I hope this is more of a follow up than a derail, but I would like to see other DMs thoughts on the actual issues that go into trying to maintain balance, espcially between PCs.

Hope the above helps.

 

[Umbran]

Rating balance as unimportant does not automatically asusme the game would be completely un reastically unbalanced either. People seem to think there are only 2 sides to balance when there are mutiple shades.....

Yes, but saying, "All you need are X, Y, and Z and you are good to go," as if X, Y, and Z were common and easy to come by is also oversimplifying. People who are being glib shouldn't be tossing rhetorical stones.

 

[Henry]

...Why is balance so important? What happens when the game isn't balanced? Why is that bad? Why is it that the concept of game balance also seems to imply a limit to the amount of power that a given character has? Wouldn't the game technically be balanced if all the PC's had the power of gods? Are there actually two different concepts at work here that tend to get rolled up into the same category? I'm curious what other people think.

Mouseferatu has the right of it, in that PC vs. opponent balance gets confused between PC vs. PC balance. "Balance" to me implies (1) no one party member controls the spotlight all the time by virtue of character abilities, and (2) the DM can set up challenging situations without it being either a cakewalk or a massacre. Cakewalks the DM sets up can be fun sometimes (it's a reminder that you've matured from being 1st level 'weenies') but the DM needs enough controls at his disposal to set the challenge level.

Even a game where PCs are gods needs a balance control. For instance, Aetherco's continuum has a brilliant one: Frag. The PCs are time travellers, tasked with making sure the universe follows a nice, causal existance. Within this parameter, they can do the most outrageous godlike things with their command of time and space (and the players LOVE it, once they get a feel for it). But that constraint of causality ("The Universe IS" is a motto for the game) is what allows the DM the control to set up a challenge, or let the players create and solve challenges all their own, with the DM able to keep a handle on the game without throwing his hands up in frustration. PCs who do not mind their causality can destroy their own very existances, and opponents can challenge them by causing fragmentation to the PCs as a means to distract or harm them. Bullets can still kill, they're still mortal, though their power means that it doesn't happen often; it's the threat of non-existance that scares a member of the Continuum more.

You can still have disproportionate powers between characters, and still have balance, though. Even if one character is godlike, and the others aren't, there are ways to set up the PCs so limitations or special abilities can cause codependency between PCs. Buffy's Unisystem exemplifies this: There's only one slayer, but the other "scoobies" are compensated with more Drama points, which allow them to alter the situations a bit.

So balance is important, in that without it, you don't have a social game, and you don't have a means by which a GM can properly challenge his/her players.

 

[Warbringer]

On balance...

I'm personally more concerned with mechanics balance (feats, spells, skills) that PC vs PC or PC vs monster. The former is the playground of the powergamer, the latter I'll dicuss in detail.

PC vs PC imbalance will occur as the campiagn advances. Characters get level drained, die, get resurrected, get imprisioned, suffer from periods of poor roleplay, have favored magic items stolen or destroyed. All these will leave to differences in level (and power) that are to be encouraged in game play. As DM it is a responsibility to move the spot light onto the characters at different points is the game, irrespective of power. Think of it as a novel...

PC vs. GM. The GM wins... Seriously, what is your role as GM. Do you direct the party from encounter to encounter or provide the canvas upon which the players paint their destiny? If the former, then of course you have the responsilbity of maintaining power levels apporpriate to the party, if the latter you have the reseponsibility of letting the players understand they may be getting in over their heads...

That's my 2c

 

[Crothian]

Yes, but saying, "All you need are X, Y, and Z and you are good to go," as if X, Y, and Z were common and easy to come by is also oversimplifying. People who are being glib shouldn't be tossing rhetorical stones.

A good DM and good players and a decent rules system are easy to come by. I've really never been without any.

 

[GVDammerung]

PCs need to be fairly balanced vs each other in terms of power & competence so that everyone can contribute meaningfully to the success of the group. For me & most players it's no fun if eg my knight PC is totally overshadowed by the wizard PC because of a broken magic system.

I disagree. If the game were being administered by a computer program, I would agree. With a flesh and blood DM, however, the DM can, and I think should, easily adjust matters to give everyone an opportunity to shine.

It is mixing metaphors but an "unbalanced" D&D party may yet function very satisfactorily when viewed from the perspective of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer type game. There is one slayer - Buffy. The show and game are named after her. This does not mean, however, that Willow and players playing Willow-type characters or even Xander and Xander-like characters or Giles and Giles-like characters etc. cannot have their storylines and moments to regularly shine.

D&D involves troupe play. The whole of the party should be greater than the sum of the parts. I see an over emphasis on balance as forgetting this, as if each character must have exactly 25% of the spotlight each and every minute and any thing more or less is wrong. Not so. Some adventures will have a specific character focus but others will move that focus around. When this is accepted, "balance" becomes far less an issue.

Balance taken to an extreme is entropy because it will substitute an artificial "equality" for the verisimiltude of a more interesting inequality, actually a shifting inequality that will favor some PCs more than others from one adventure to the other just depending. So long as no one is permanently left to only hold the horses reigns, I think the quest for balance derives from too much time in front of the Xbox. IMO, the D&D experience should be more like a novel, teleplay or movie and less like Playstation.

IMO

 

[jmucchiello]

The only balance that matters is the perceived fun acquired by each player averaged over a number of play sessions. All other balance is illusory. Even in a game with some tricked out rules-bending god-like character as compared to the other characters can be balanced as long as all the players enjoy watching the god-like character romp and the player of the god-like character likes reining it in and giving the others their time in the sun. Basically this is how Ars Magica works. The moment one player thinks "my character is useless. I may as well leave." is the moment there is a balance issue. Because that player's fun has bottomed out.

As for mechanical balance, unless you reduce the game to a single stat and give every character the same value in that stat, there will be balance issues. (What's your success value? 3. Hey, so's mine!) That doesn't mean designers can throw game balance out the window. It just means that RPGs follow Godol's Incomplete Theorum: Any sufficiently complex system is incomplete. IOWs, no matter how complex you make a system, there will always be events within the system that the system cannot handle.

 

[Ethernaut]

It is mixing metaphors but an "unbalanced" D&D party may yet function very satisfactorily when viewed from the perspective of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer type game. There is one slayer - Buffy. The show and game are named after her. This does not mean, however, that Willow and players playing Willow-type characters or even Xander and Xander-like characters or Giles and Giles-like characters etc. cannot have their storylines and moments to regularly shine.

Amen to that. I've been running a successful Buffy game for several years now and balance (as in character ability balance) has never been an issue. Some characters are clearly more powerful than others. But everyone in the game gets a chance to shine with their own plots and sub-plots.

It must be said, however, that we agreed to have an "unbalanced" game before we started. Everyone knew that someone would be the Slayer and everyone else would be White Hats.

 

[Wayside]

And so it is for many DM's, I'm sure, but this is a contract between you and your players, not between you and the system. The system - the Core Rules, the Rules as Written, whatever you want to call it - must be balanced for it to be the basis of a game which wants to have broad appeal, variety, and longevity. What individual DM's and their groups do with the rules after that doesn't really matter (unless they then PDF their rules and try to sell 'em).

If you reread my post, you'll find that "balanced" systems are incompatible with the kind of game I want to be playing. So no, it is in fact a contract between me and the system, or would be if I played D&D. Balance certainly doesn't encourage variety, although I'm sure you're right about appeal and longevity (two things which really don't concern me as I'm not one of those people who cares about the state of the hobby--then again, witness: Rifts. How important can balance be?).